Pets Destroying Furniture

Have You Ever Experienced a Pet-Related Decorating Disaster?

One of my favorite designers, David Trubridge, posted this photo on his Facebook page, explaining, "A very upset customer from Australia contacted me last year. She was assembling her Floral and left the room for 30 seconds, when she came back she found this! Some pieces were destroyed but we sent her some more in exchange for the photo!"

The worst offense my dog has ever committed was nibbling up part of a photo frame and scratching maniacally at the edge of a cabinet (we're still sanding it down). But from what I've heard from other pet-owning friends, I've gotten off pretty easily in comparison to some of the horrors their pets have committed against their home decor.

I used to hate to put my dogs in a kennel during the day, so I would put up a baby gate and keep them in the bathroom. When the middle one was a puppy, she ate two holes in the wall (straight through the sheetrock) and when the baby was a puppy she chewed the tops of the base boards around the entire bathroom. Needless to say, I learned to be ok with kenneling them.
The oldest never tore up the house, but she loved to tear up other stuff, like toilet paper, paper, toys, etc...

My husband and I redid our living room when we bought our first house. We found the perfect couch, a very retro-styled red leather tufted queen-sized pullout couch, as well as a coffee table/end table set that worked with the whole room. Two months later, we unexpectedly adopted kittens. Our couch is now full of pinpricks and even some long scratches from when they were too small to jump all the way up and would claw their way up. They also knocked over a glass of water and we now have a few warped spots on our coffee table. Curtains have been a no-go. (I actually posted about that a few months ago!) Our poor living room is a little sparse --- for now. I'm hoping they'll grow out of it as they get a little bit older!